Capacity

When I was a little girl I got involved in stuff a lot. I wouldn’t say that I was a joiner-in particularly, but when I look back, and count up the activities I did as a young person, it comes to quite a lot, especially when you consider I grew up in a Devon valley ten miles away from anywhere. For a small village, there was a lot going on, from amateur dramatics (adults and children) to gymnastics. The only fly in the ointment (for me, anyway, other children had differently inclined parents) was that if it didn’t happen in the village, it wasn’t happening for me. Hence, any dreams I had of being an ballerina or ice dance champion were dashed.

I started gymnastics when I was six or seven. As it was not long after the end of my four month hospital stay and I was a bag of bones with a red-raw operation scar that went half way round my back (still does, but it’s not red-raw) my parents were, understandably, somewhat anxious about it. I was put in my sister’s group, and she took care of me (or, as I saw it, bossed me about and made me be her partner – she took her role seriously, I guess), and made sure I didn’t hurt myself or wear myself out. I kept going until I was about 12 or 13, my lack of strength preventing me from being much good, but not from enjoying myself thoroughly, even though I could never manage to land on my feet after a handspring and my walkovers went one way but not the other.

Am-drams were similarly long-standing. One of my earliest memories was a rehearsal in the back room of Mrs Hughes’ house (she had so many children, I was never quite sure who they were or how many). I had somehow found myself in the group that were somehow baddies. I burst into tears and had to be moved, even though they came good and won out in the end. Costumes always seemed to involve nylon tights (yuck) and backstage was a wonderful gloryhole of rooms stacked with trestle tables that must have been born before the war. My favourite role was ‘Punch’, where my friend Kay and I got to hit each other with pipe insulation. The worst was when I had to wear an itchy leotard that was supposed to be my friend Carla’s costume.

The clubs were always filled with the same people (we all had similar parents, apart from Sophie, who gave up gym for dancing). Amy came with me to gym and drama. Kay to drama and Sunday School. My mum used to run the Sunday school with Mrs Hughes (who ran the Junior Players) and Mrs Freshney (who ran the holiday club with Mrs Hughes andmy mum), which meant that I didn’t have much choice in going or not (my dad was the man who Washed the Car on Sunday mornings) (not that I minded, I hasten to point out, I was more than happy to go). She used to make the booklets by spreading the individual pages out all over the sitting room floor. Kay and I used to giggle together, and I remained fascinated by the Chinese-style wallpaper in the vicar’s toilet for years, that and the open cistern, for years.

Actually, now I come to think about it, the reason I got so involved was no doubt directly related to my parents. My dad was on the organising committee of the gym club AND the PTA (until he fell out with the headmaster over the spelling of ‘barbqueue’). Along with a go-getty set of parents who ran the sort of clubs they knew their children would enjoy, they provided for us a range of out of school activities that certainly kept us busy and enriched our lives at the same time. When it came to my turn, and my children started nursery and Sunday School and football and scouts, naturally, I thought that I would do the same.

Except, I didn’t. I volunteered for the committee of this, that and the other, and even went to a few meetings, took my turn with a few teas, but, somehow, I couldn’t keep it up. At first I thought it was the new baby thing. Having three young children saps the energy of the youngest and fittest of mothers, so I thought it might be that. Next, I thought it was the fundraising thing. I have mixed feelings about fund raising (and very firm views on cake sales), or meetings and endless circular discussions. But, somehow, other women with more children than me seemed to manage. Other women who were equally busy, or impatient with group decisions seemed to get along just fine. They ran the committee and baked and sewed, raising large amounts of money for a variety of projects as they went along, cheerfully giving of themselves to the community and I…couldn’t.

It took me a while to figure it out. It took me a while to discover things like ‘mental load’ and capacity and how this is different for everyone and how when there is disability in the family, everything is magnified.

So now, when I see something about inclusive church, or business start-ups for learning disabled people, or personal budgets or anything else that sounds like a great idea if only it happened near to where I live, I smile sadly to myself (or scowl, depending on which side of the smile you happen to be) and sigh and know that what the answer will be to any number of good ideas.

‘Here’s an email address.’

‘Here’s a website.’

‘You make it happen.’

And, like every other time before, I drift away, disappointed. Having a good idea is great and all, but unless you have other people around you who have the capacity to turn your idea into something real, unless you have someone around who can make it happen, that’s all it will ever be. Without capacity, it will only ever be a pipe dream.